Perhaps it will be objected that the examples hitherto cited emanate chiefly from politicians and literary men, who are not accustomed to exercise their judgment. But there are also the manifestoes of the professorial body, that is, those whose essential mission consists in passing facts and ideas through the sieve of criticism, to isolate the true from the false, and to extract from error the fragment of truth which may have fallen into it. For what is the effect of teaching, of whatever degree, if it is not the constant alertness of the critical spirit, which seeks, in all things and at every moment, to separate that which is true and which should therefore be communicated to the disciple from the medley of false and useless things which may with impunity be abandoned to oblivion? And when the teacher is also a seeker, has he not once more unceasingly to exercise his critical spirit, that he may recognize in the host of ideas which present themselves to him those which may lead him to the desired end--and, once this is attained, those which he may use as a touchstone to test experimentally the validity of these deductions? In short, for the professor and the scientific worker there is no intellectual faculty more indispensable than the critical spirit. Now among those who have dashed into the lists to champion, with their pens, the rights of Germany, and to crush her adversaries, we must make a quite special mention of the professors and schoolmasters. Let us begin with the latter. Their principal argument in denial of the barbarous conduct of which the German troops have been accused, is that it would be incompatible with the flourishing condition of the educational institutions of Germany. As though elementary education was capable of eliminating from humanity the profound imprints of its intimate mentality! Instruction may hide them, as under a veneer, but it can never cause their disappearance. The Germans, after Sadowa and the war of 1870-1, declared that the whole honour of their victories was due to their primary education. "The French campaign is the triumph of the German schoolmaster." Those who in Belgium have seen the villages devastated by fire and the graves of the civilians shot, and above all the pillaged homes, with furniture and crockery broken into small fragments, and the filthy beds, will carry away the impression that "the Belgian campaign is the bankruptcy of the German schoolmaster." _The Manifesto of the "Ninety-three."_